It's the start of a long weekend and I've found myself with a backlog of links, so it's time for another linkdump - the eighteenth in the (occasional) series. Here's the previous installments:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
The war-criminals, rapists, murderers and rip-off artists who currently make do with bogus copyright claims to "manage their reputations" will be able to use pretextual legal threats to make their critics just disappear:
In a post-230 world, Cola Corporation's lawyers wouldn't get a chance to reply to the LAPD's bullying lawyers - those lawyers would send their letter to Cola's hosting provider, who would weigh the possibility of being named in a lawsuit against the small-dollar monthly payment they get from Cola, and poof, no more Cola. The legal bullies could do the same for Cola's email provider, their payment processor, their anti-DoS provider.
The Big Tech platforms really do suck, and the solution to their systemic, persistent moderation failures won't come from making them liable for users' speech.
The platforms have correctly assessed that they alone have the legal and moderation staff to do the mass-deletions of controversial speech that could survive a post-230 world. That's why tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg love the idea of getting rid of 230:
But for small tech providers - individuals, co-ops, nonprofits and startups that host fediverse servers, standalone group chats and BBSes - a post-230 world is a mass-extinction event.
Ever had a friend demand that you take sides in an interpersonal dispute ("if you invite her to the party, I'm not coming!").
Imagine if your refusal to take sides in a dispute among your friends - and their friends, and their friends - could result in you being named to a suit that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle:
It's one thing to hope for a more humane internet run by people who want to make hospitable forums for online communities to form. It's another to ask them to take on an uninsurable risk that could result in the loss of their home, their retirement account, and their life's savings.
A post-230 world is one in which Big Tech must delete first and ask questions later.
Yes, Big Tech platforms have many sins to answer for, but making them jointly liable for their users' speech will flush out treasure-hunters seeking a quick settlement and a quick buck.
Again, this isn't speculative - it's inevitable. Consider FTX: yes, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange was a festering hive of fraud - but there's no way that fraud added up to the 23.6 quintillion dollars in claims that have been laid against it:
Without 230, Big Tech will shut down anything controversial - and small tech will disappear. It's the worst of all possible worlds, a gift to tech monopolists and the bullies and crooks who have turned our online communities into shooting galleries.
One of the reasons I love working for EFF is our ability to propose technologically informed, sound policy solutions to the very real problems that tech creates, such as our work on interoperability as a way to make it easier for users to escape Big Tech:
Every year, EFF recognizes the best, bravest and brightest contributors to a better internet and a better technological future, with our annual EFF Awards.
It's nearly time for me to sign off on this weekend's linkdump. For one thing, I have to vacate my backyard hammock, because we've got contractors who need to access the side of the house to install our brand new heat-pump.
(One of two things I'm purchasing with my last lump-sum book advance - the other is corrective cataract surgery that will give me lifelong, perfect vision.)
I've been lusting after a heat-pump for years, and they just keep getting better - though you might not know it, thanks to the fossil-fuel industry disinfo campaign that insists that these unbelievably cool gadgets don't work.
This week in Wired, Matt Simon offers a comprehensive debunking of this nonsense, and on the way, explains the nearly magical technology that allows a heat pump to heat a midwestern home in the dead of winter:
On Bloomberg, Feargus O'Sullivan describes one such app the Japanese yokushitsu kansouki - a sealed bathroom with its own heat-pump that can perfectly dry all your clothes while you're out at work:
This is amazing stuff - it uses less energy than a clothes-dryer, leaves your clothes wrinkle-free, prevents the rapid deterioration caused by high heat and mechanical agitation, and prevents the microfiber pollution that lowers our air-quality.
This is the most solarpunk thing I've read all week, and it makes me insanely jealous of Japanese people. The second-most solarpunk thing I've read this week came from The New Republic, where Aaron Regunberg and Donald Braman discuss the possibility of using civil asset forfeiture laws - lately expanded to farcical levels by the Supreme Court in Culley - to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the energy transition:
They point out that Big Oil has committed a string of undisputed crimes, including fraud, and that the Supremes' new standard for asset forfeiture could comfortably accommodate state AGs and other enforcers who seek billions from Big Oil on this basis. Of course, Big Oil has more resources to fight civil asset forfeiture than the median disputant in these cases ("a low- or moderate-income person of color [with] a suspected connection to drugs"). But it's an exciting idea!